Saturday, July 28, 2007

Today, we navigated the vast perilous squishy hinterland called Babies R' Us. We were there for safety reasons. Tom and I had been called in to escort my feverish and very pale brother.

After about ten minutes surrounded by miles of essential baby equipment and earnest pregnant teenagers realizing how many hours they'll need to put in at TGI Fridays to pay for all this gear, I myself became clammy. My condition took a turn for the worse after cranking out a quick cost/benefit analysis on the mini-waterfall option for the Rainforest Pack n' Play. I grew woozy and disoriented, but luckily appear to be scrappy in the face of tiny bedding in galactic heaps. Fortitude was called for. Mary had prepared a four page shopping list complete with pictures and top color choices. The good news about being flat on your back in the hospital for 8 weeks is it's conducive to high-level comparison shopping.

Tom disappeared early on. He beelined for the electronics section to check out the baby monitors. He had his eye on a 1.2 gigahertz infrared number he could borrow for a while to use as a deck-cam. The unidentified fuzzy midnight guests shitting on our patio plagues his every waking moment.

I fixated on an adorable stuffed moose with a pacifier hanging out its ass. My highly strung brother stressed about going off the list. Tom, usually a spacial-relations genius, turned into an alarmist and expressed grave doubts all our purchases would fit in the car.

Friday, July 27, 2007

My brother believes the cosmic repercussions of counting buns in the oven before they've hatched are as dire as your Jewish grandmother claims. But today, the stars aligned and he declared an all clear on the procurement of baby items.

He zipped right over to Babies 'R Us and was rendered completely mute. He teetered on the precipice of hyperventilation. He purchased $600 worth of car seats and tiny colorful blankets and then he went home and took a nap.

Two Practically Simultaneous and Equally Tragic Incidents Occurring On or About our Heezie:

A hive of carpenter bees, real soulless fucks, has devoured a chunk of house that I really think we need.

A 6-inch wide mysterious tower of shit sprawls mid-backyard so we email my reliably sage dad who comes to our informational rescue with the following analysis:

A bear is such an opportunistic eater its scat varies widely as you can see in these attached photos. Raccoons are opportunistic eaters as well, but I think the size eliminates them. With the shape, size, color- I'd say it could be a bear.

Should you desire to review the accompanying photographs and gag a little bit in the name of science, check out my Flickr account.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Thoroughly checking all sources on last night's Bowery Ballroom event, the tickets gave the show start at 6:00, the TurboFruit's website said they went on at 7:00, the Bowery Ballroom website listed 8:00, but in actuality, doors opened around 10.

Before you say we should have called the venue instead of just taking a weighted average of the likelihood of accuracy for all reported start times and showing up about 8:30: Please be aware they never pick up the phone and the recorded message is endless dribble relaying the phone numbers of other venues to call due to some cunning poligamist box office strategem.

They want you to come early and drink, is the big picture bottomline idea. Had I realized this from the beginning it would have saved me a lot of spreadsheet work, is all I'm saying.

Lucky for us, a friend of a friend was getting saucy at his Birthday party at a schmancy restaurant in Union Square simulaneous to the shocking revalation that we had 2.5 hours to kill.

We invited ourselves to his party.

Turns out, immediately prior to our arrival, someone had informed the birthday boy that the solo orange button on his new $400 dress shirt declared his allegiance to the other team. The birthday boy, recently separated from his wife of many years and looking for his birthday to end in a bang, was confounded by the sudden turn in his destiny. Doubled his chances for success was my take on it.

We ended up missing the TurboFruits and only caught the end of Jay Reatard. I had enough time to realize you couldn't join the band without a towering bouncy jewfro. Despite the wild frenzy of hair, they sounded good.

Luckily, the soundman knew it and had the echo cranked. I could tell the frontman had a thing for Kurt Cobain in his matted stringy hair days. Meanwhile, the second guitar just got a new Whammy pedal and relished showing off his new toy. This annoyed Tom, but I kinda dug the cool noises.

Bass played by a chick who was up for the challenge. From all appearances, she was embroiled in a spat with the singer and the guitar player because they ignored each other throughout the entire set. At one point, the guitar player overtured a move in her direction, but her evil eye knocked him back.

I would have like to see the drummer tighten it up some. The wavy amped up Whammy noises needed a more solid undercurrent. Or maybe the guitars were turned up way too loud. Possible because at the beginning of the set I saw the frontman motion about six times to the soundman to turn him up. Unfortunately, the soundman complied.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Went to Zona Rosa on 56th for an early Mexican nosh with Afrodite. Her mother did in fact name her Afrodite and yes, she is of extreme Greek decent, so quit asking.

Afrodite has this steel trap memory which she employs to catalog Art. She'll throw down the artist's name plus the title and date for all heavyweight Art and even a lot of Flash in the Pan Shit. I myself had too much Pacifico with my chips and salsa and now cannot recall the masterworks we saw subsequently at MoMA. Except like two.

This unfortunate reality could be construed as distressing because there is this one highbrow interactive exhibit where you're supposed to type out a profound question on a keyboard.

The art occurs when your deeply insightful question shoots through a tubular rubber wire onto one of those early 90's style pagers able to handle like 75 pixilated characters. Afterwards, you step back, scan the immense white vicinity and realize your pager is merely a speck inside a web of a thousand pagers whipping through other people's questions at 5-second intervals. It is a large blinking wall of fathomless uncertainty that could endanger even the most medicated epileptic.

I have a vague recollection of typing a question about why some people are allergic to pants.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

So, it was odd with the Astro Turf duct-taped on concrete and everyone sitting around pretending it was a grassy lawn. Plus I really need to get a fix on the intricate Etiquette of the Outdoor Concert.

I first realize my woeful lack of social skills after I approach the barricade ringing the good lawn in front of the stage where the special people were. Get in a little headbopping at the closer proximity. I feel a tug on my pant leg.

A cross-legged girl motions for me to lean down. She says, "I just wanted you to know that I'm saving that spot. I'm sitting right now, but when I stand up, I'm planning to stand right where you are standing now."

During the pause where I busily pry apart my lips using all the fingers on both hands, she tosses in, "Ummm, but we probably can both fit." I think my flared nostrils and booboogeebie popping eyeballs might have had a persuasive effect.

Finally, I spit out, "Good plan. Best of luck with that." And when I say, "spit out," I mean I sort of think I drooled on her. Warm beer makes me salivate.

Skip to later. Once again living large by the barricade. I look down and spy a light blue sweatshirt on the ground. Being a bleeding heart concerned with sweatshirt safety, I nudge it out of harm's way. Just then, a voice says, "She just moved my sweatshirt. Doesn't she know that spot is saved?"

I wait, desperately willing someone to come forward and accuse me of dissing their turf. I am fully at the ready. When I say "fully at the ready" I mean I had pulled together this whole fantasy confrontation. It would have gone like this:

"Did you just move my sweatshirt?"

"What, did you want me to just stand on top of it?"

"No, I put it there because that spot is saved!"

"Saved? As in "Jesus saves" or as in "You sure know how to party with the naughty elementary-school-set saved?"

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Fast as lightening on a 25-mile ride with the Old Spokes Bicycle Club, dad jettisoned the peloton to join a three man breakaway.

Dad, Jim and Bob traded turns drafting each other to maintain their blistering 19 mph clip. They grandstanded across the finish line nearly 10 minutes in front of the rest of the pack.

After receiving his polka dot jersey and wonderworking some quickfinger digital watch maneuvers to confirm ride stats, Dad hopped back in the saddle. He couldn't unlock the car anyway because the Rocklands had driven the carpool.

Dad headed back to meet the rest of the bike gang, his coterie of admirers, and rubbed in a victory lap.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

In the 30's when they lived in the Bronx, Grammy and Grampy would cruise down to the Apollo maybe once a month. Catch the new acts.That was back when all the cool cats in Harlem sported pointy tan patent leather shoes. Very pointy. Grampy had a buddy who rocked a pair of the toe-crampers. Bernie worked for a butcher uptown.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Rank the below on competitive spirit. Scale is one to ten, with five being the middle:

Incident #1:May, 2007

Here I am running along. I glimpse two mountain bikers up ahead on the trail. I speculate correctly that I am going to catch them. This fascinates me, given my passion for low-speed mayhem.

A lanky teenage kid pedals along in front while what looks like his dad brings up the rear. Dad looks mortified as I shuffle by. Kid remains expressionless. He's a real warm glass of milk. I wonder if they'll pass me on the downhill. Which they never do.

Incident #2:July, 2007

Here I am running along. I see a pony-tailed jogbra tooling down the trail in front of me and I'm gaining on her. She hears me and picks up the pace. She turns a corner and I lose sight of her. When I get around the bend, the woman is gone. I think she hid in the bushes.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Write a statement explaining the below scenario. You are not required to justify the exchange, as even Nancy Drew admits this would be futile. All you need to do is get across how this one partygoing kung fu fighter got such a big thoughtless ice cube lodged up her ass.

Please bear in mind I have never met this person before in my life:

Upon overhearing about 30 seconds of my joyous babble re: my new iPhone, my eavesdropping friendnot interjects, "I demo'ed one of those at work. They suck. My Trio is so much better. Watch how fast I can type on it. See? See? Look at me typing really fast with two hands on my Trio. You can't do that on yours."

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

3:30PM: Return from client meeting. Pick up voicemail from Sue somebody, who is a part-time "stager," and also "dabbles in real estate and medical billing." She needs a logo for one, or maybe all, of the above pursuits. I squeeze my head for some freelancer I can refer her to. Can't come up with anybody. Write Sue's phone number on yellow post-it note. Set it aside.

5:30PM: Decide to clean up my desk before the holiday. Run across a yellow post-it note which reads, "Sue, 973-xxx-xxxx." Have no idea what it is. Figure it must be old. Throw it out.

3:30AM: Wake up in middle of the night dreaming of yellow post-it note. Remember enough to write this post.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Tom cleverly selected the least-cool apple store location and shuttlecocked over there in the am. Flawless planning resulted in the victorious capture of two devices. Tom ripped the wrapper off his magical new iPhone and spent the rest of the day loading up his contacts and organizing them with single-minded vigor.

My contacts, calendar and address book remain in despicable disarray. My unruly fingers derailed all the best intentions. Tragically, I found myself riding on the iPhone short bus.

I did manage to amuse myself endlessly flipping through my album covers and zooming in on web pages, a cravable trick Andrew clued us into late in the day. It was like catching lightening in a bottle. Too bad I had already sprained my distal phalanges pursuing a lot of fruitless screen poking, which is my first-line ploy for overcoming every manner of iphone pickle.